The world’s largest mobile phone supplier believes support for Eclipse will, for the first time, open its cell phones to ranks of Java programmers using the open source framework.
Nokia is expected to today announce integration of Eclipse in its Developer Suite 2.2 for Java 2 Micro Edition 2.2, along with integration of any MIDP Nokia platform software development kit (SDK) into the Eclipse environment. Nokia will also announce Eclipse support in its Mobile Server Services SDK.
The announcements will be made at Sun Microsystems Inc’s JavaOne Conference, in San Francisco, California, where Sun will point to the market opportunities awaiting Java developers choosing to build games, applications and services for mobile devices.
Integration of Nokia’s tools means developers using Eclipse can now bring Nokia’s J2ME tools inside their existing environment, using a single interface, rather than switching between multiple windows to utilize Eclipse-based tools and Nokia’s tools.
Matt Volipi, head of developer resources for Forum Nokia, the handset manufacturers’ community consisting of 1.5m registered developers, said while Nokia is not a tools company, it does like to follow developers. Developers help add value to Nokia’s Java-based devices, by building business and consumer software and services that make handsets increasingly useful to end-users.
According to analyst Evans Data, Eclipse is rapidly growing in strength among developers. Evans’s first global developer survey, published in May, recorded 90% growth in North American developers using Eclipse.
Volipi expects a sudden increase in Forum Nokia members using Eclipse, once they become exposed to Nokia’s J2ME tools.
Every time we go to another areas of developers we tend to get a pretty big basket of people who say: ‘Oh, I can develop for mobile, and it’s not as hard as I thought’. The next three to six months we expect to get a big jump, as people come from the Eclipse platform, Volipi said.
Nokia, though, is not joining Eclipse. Volipi said Nokia didn’t see much benefit in joining, adding it was not an insignificant decision to pay the organization’s new membership fees.
